Linderhof

Gardening, Cooking and Decorating on the Prairie of Kansas

Welcome to Linderhof, our 1920's home on the prairie, where there's usually something in the oven, flowers in the garden for tabletops and herbs in the garden for cooking. Where, when company comes, the teapot is always on and there are cookies and cakes to share in the larder.

Saturday, May 9, 2009

Happy Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day

The things that my mother instilled in me . . .

Love for classical music

Love of art

A passion for flowers both in the house and in the garden

The love of cooking

The love of entertaining

Love for theatre

Mother loved music and at our house music was playing rather than the television. I find the sound of television jarring (unless one is watching a specific show) as background noise.

Mother took us often to the art gallery and the museum. I think it was a way to entertain two children for free as much as it was a way to instill a love of the arts in us.

Mother always had a bouquet of flowers on the kitchen table and when we had a dining room, if we ate in the dining room there was a centerpiece there as well. She loved houseplants and had a special affinity for violets -- she could take a leaf and grow a new plant! Her flower garden was an old fashioned garden with flowers tucked here and there. A perennial garden which bloomed from spring until frost.

Mother loved to cook and would often try new recipes. The only thing better than talking food with your mother is talking food with your daughter.

Mother loved to have her table full -- nothing pleased her more than having company. From my childhood when she would host the church ladies or the bridge club, to being the site of all the holiday family dinners. Polishing silver, the good china, freshly ironed table linens. She taught me well.

Mother loved the theatre especially musicals and so each summer would find us at our outdoor theatre in the front row of the cheap seats (we were poor as church mice) watching the magic of live theatre unfold before our eyes.

For years I would gift mother with a bouquet of flowers for mother's day. She needed nothing and she loved flowers.

I still do flowers for my mother for mother's day -- only now they decorate her grave.